Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy (46 page)

"That's exactly what I am planning. But before that can happen, we must try and talk with Hilde. She reads every word we say. Once we succeed in getting away from here it will be much harder to contact her. That means we must grasp the opportunity now."

"What do we say?"

"I think the major is just about to fall asleep over his typewriter--although his fingers are still racing feverishly over the keys ..."

"It's a creepy thought."

"This is the moment when he may write something he will regret later. And he has no correction fluid. That's a vital part of my plan. May no one give the major a bottle of correction fluid!"

"He won't get so much as a single coverup strip from me!"

"I'm calling on that poor girl here and now to rebel against her own father. She should be ashamed to let herself be amused by his self-indulgent playing with shad-ows. If only we had him here, we'd give him a taste of our indignation!"

"But he's not here."

"He is here in spirit and soul, but he's also safely tucked away in Lebanon. Everything around us is the major's ego."

"But he is more than what we can see here."

"We are but shadows in the major's soul. And it is no easy matter for a shadow to turn on its master, Sophie. It requires both cunning and strategy. But we have an opportunity of influencing Hilde. Only an angel can rebel against God."

"We could ask Hilde to give him a piece of her mind the moment he gets home. She could tell him he's a rogue. She could wreck his boat--or at least, smash the lantern."

Alberto nodded. Then he said: "She could also run away from him That would be much easier for her than it is for us. She could leave the major's house and never return. Wouldn't that be fitting for a major who plays with his 'universe-creating imagination' at our expense?" "I can picture it. The major travels all over the world searching for Hilde. But Hilde has vanished into thin air because she can't stand living with a father who plays the fool at Alberto's and Sophie's expense."

"Yes, that's it! Plays the fool! That's what I meant by his using us as birthday amusement. But he'd better watch out, Sophie. So had Hilde!"

"How do you mean?"

"Are you sitting tight?"

"As long as there are no more genies from a lamp."

"Try to imagine that everything that happens to us goes on in someone else's mind. We are that mind. That means we have no soul, we are someone else's soul. So far we are on familiar philosophical ground. Both Berkeley and Schelling would prick up their ears."

"And?"

"Now it is possible that this soul is Hilde M0ller Knag's father. He is over there in Lebanon writing a book on philosophy for his daughter's fifteenth birthday. When Hilde wakes up on June 15, she finds the book on her bedside table, and now she--and anyone else--can read about us. It has long been suggested that this 'present' could be shared with others."

"Yes, I remember."

"What I am saying to you now will be read by Hilde after her father in Lebanon once imagined that I was telling you he was in Lebanon ... imagining me telling you that he was in Lebanon."

Sophie's head was swimming. She tried to remember what she had heard about Berkeley and the Romantics. Alberto Knox continued: "But they shouldn't feel so cocky because of that. They are the last people who should laugh, because laughter can easily get stuck in their throat."

"Who are we talking about?" "Hilde and her father. Weren't we talking about them?"

"But why shouldn't they feel so cocky?"

"Because it is feasible that they, too, are nothing but mind."

"How could they be?"

"If it was possible for Berkeley and the Romantics, it must be possible for them. Maybe the major is also a shadow in a book about him and Hilde, which is also about us, since we are a part of their lives."

"That would be even worse. That makes us only shadows of shadows."

"But it is possible that a completely different author is somewhere writing a book about a UN Major Albert Knag, who is writing a book for his daughter Hilde. This book is about a certain Alberto Knox who suddenly begins to send humble philosophical lectures to Sophie Amundsen, 3 Clover Close."

"Do you believe that?"

"I'm just saying it's possible. To us, that author would be a 'hidden God.' Although everything we are and everything we say and do proceeds from him, because we are him we will never be able to know anything about him. We are in the innermost box."

Alberto and Sophie now sat for a long time without saying anything. It was Sophie who finally broke the silence: "But if there really is an author who is writing a story about Hilde's father in Lebanon, just like he is writing a story about us . . ."

"Yes?"

"... then it's possible that author shouldn't be cocky either."

"What do you mean?"

"He is sitting somewhere, hiding both Hilde and me deep inside his head. Isn't it just possible that he, too, is part of a higher mind?" Atberto nodded.

"Of course it is, Sophie. That's also a possibility. And if that is the way it is, it means he has permitted us to have this philosophical conversation in order to present this possibility. He wishes to emphasize that he, too, is a helpless shadow, and that this book, in which Hilde and Sophie appear, is in reality a textbook on philosophy."

"A textbook?"

"Because all our conversations, all our dialogues ..."

"Yes?"

"... are in reality one long monologue."

"I get the feeling that everything is dissolving into mind and spirit. I'm glad there are still a few philosophers left. The philosophy that began so proudly with Thales, Em-pedocles, and Democritus can't be stranded here, surely?"

"Of course not. I still have to tell you about Hegel. He was the first philosopher who tried to salvage philosophy when the Romantics had dissolved everything into spirit."

"I'm very curious."

"So as not to be interrupted by any further spirits or shadows, we shall go inside."

"It's getting chilly out here anyway."

"Next chapter!"

Hegel

... the reasonable is that which is viable...

Hilde let the big ring binder fall to the floor with a heavy thud. She lay on her bed staring up at the ceiling. Her thoughts were in a turmoil. Now her father really had made her head swim. The rascal! How could he?

Sophie had tried to talk directly to her. She had asked her to rebel against her father. And she had really managed to plant an idea in Hilde's mind. A plan ...

Sophie and Alberto could not so much as harm a hair on his head, but Hilde could. And through Hilde, Sophie could reach her father.

She agreed with Sophie and Alberto that he was going too far in his game of shadows. Even if he had only made Alberto and Sophie up, there were limits to the show of power he ought to permit himself.

Poor Sophie and Alberto! They were just as defenseless against the major's imagination as a movie screen is against the film projector.

Hilde would certainly teach him a lesson when he got home! She could already see the outline of a really good plan.

She got up and went to look out over the bay. It was almost two o'clock. She opened the window and called over toward the boathouse.

"Mom!"

Her mother came out.

"I'll be down with some sandwiches in about an hour. Okay?" "Fine." "I just have to read a chapter on Hegel."

Alberto and Sophie had seated themselves in the two chairs by the window facing the lake.

"Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hege/was a legitimate child of Romanticism," began Alberto. "One could almost say he developed with the German spirit as it gradually evolved in Germany. He was born in Stuttgart in 1770, and began to study theology in Tubingen at the age of eighteen. Beginning in 1799, he worked with Schelling in Jena during the time when the Romantic Movement was experiencing its most explosive growth. After a period as assistant professor in Jena he became a professor in Heidelberg, the center of German National Romanticism. In 1818 he was appointed professor in Berlin, just at the time when the city was becoming the spiritual center of Europe. He died of cholera in 1831, but not before 'He-gelianism' had gained an enormous following at nearly all the universities in Germany."

"So he covered a lot of ground."

"Yes, and so did his philosophy. Hegel united and developed almost all the ideas that had surfaced in the Romantic period. But he was sharply critical of many of the Romantics, including Schelling."

"What was it he criticized?"

"Schelling as well as other Romantics had said that the deepest meaning of life lay in what they called the 'world spirit.' Hegel also uses the term 'world spirit,' but in a new sense. When Hegel talks of 'world spirit' or 'world reason,' he means the sum of human utterances, because only man has a 'spirit.'

"In this sense, he can speak of the progress of world spirit throughout history. However, we must never forget that he is referring to human life, human thought, and human culture."

"That makes this spirit much less spooky. It is not lying in wait anymore like a 'slumbering intelligence' in rocks and trees."

"Now, you remember that Kant had talked about something he called 'das Ding an sich.' Although he denied that man could have any clear cognition of the in-nermost secrets of nature, he admitted that there exists a kind of unattainable 'truth.' Hegel said that 'truth is subjective/ thus rejecting the existence of any 'truth' above or beyond human reason. All knowledge is human knowledge, he said."

"He had to get the philosophers down to earth again, right?"

"Yes, perhaps you could say that. However, Hegel's philosophy was so all-embracing and diversified that for present purposes we shall content ourselves with highlighting some of the main aspects. It is actually doubtful whether one can say that Hegel had his own 'philosophy' at all. What is usually known as Hegel's philosophy is mainly a method for understanding the progress of history. Hegel's philosophy teaches us nothing about the inner nature of life, but it can teach us to think productively." "That's not unimportant."

"All the philosophical systems before Hegel had had one thing in common, namely, the attempt to set up eternal criteria for what man can know about the world. This was true of Descartes, Spinoza, Hume, and Kant. Each and every one had tried to investigate the basis of human cognition. But they had all made pronouncements on the timeless factor of human knowledge of the world."

"Isn't that a philosopher's job?"

"Hegel did not believe it was possible. He believed that the basis of human cognition changed from one generation to the next. There were therefore no 'eternal truths/ no timeless reason. The only fixed point philosophy can hold on to is history itself."

"I'm afraid you'll have to explain that. History is in a constant state of change, so how can it be a fixed point?"

"A river is also in a constant state of change. That doesn't mean you can't talk about it. But you cannot say at which place in the valley the river is the 'truest' river."

"No, because it's just as much river all the way through."

"So to Hegel, history was like a running river. Every tiny movement in the water at a given spot in the river is determined by the falls and eddies in the water higher upstream. But these movements are determined, too, by the rocks and bends in the river at the point where you are observing it."

"I get it... I think."

"And the history of thought--or of reason--is like this river. The thoughts that are washed along with the current of past tradition, as well as the material conditions prevailing at the time, help to determine how you think. You can therefore never claim that any particular thought is correct for ever and ever. But the thought can be correct from where you stand."

"That's not the same as saying that everything is equally right or equally wrong, is it?" "Certainly not, but some things can be right or wrong in relation to a certain historical context. If you advocated slavery today, you would at best be thought foolish. But you wouldn't have been considered foolish 2,500 years ago, even though there were already progressive voices in favor of slavery's abolition. But we can take a more local example. Not more than 100 years ago it was not considered unreasonable to burn off large areas of forest in order to cultivate the land. But it is extremely unreasonable today. We have a completely different--and better--basis for such judgments."

"Now I see."

"Hegel pointed out that as regards philosophical reflection, also, reason is dynamic; it's a process, in fact. And the 'truth' is this same process, since there are no criteria beyond the historical process itself that can determine what is the most true or the most reasonable."

"Examples, please."

"You cannot single out particular thoughts from antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, or the Enlightenment and say they were right or wrong. By the same token, you cannot say that Plato was wrong and that Aristotle was right. Neither can you say that Hume was wrong but Kant and Schelling were right. That would be an antihistorical way of thinking."

"No, it doesn't sound right."

"In fact, you cannot detach any philosopher, or any thought at all, from that philosopher's or that thought's historical context. But--and here I come to another point--because something new is always being added, reason is 'progressive.' In other words, human knowledge is constantly expanding and progressing."

"Does that mean that Kant's philosophy is nevertheless more right than Plato's?"

"Yes. The world spirit has developed--and progressed--from Plato to Kant. And it's a good thing! If we return to the example of the river, we could say that there is now more water in it. It has been running for over a thousand years. Only Kant shouldn't think that his 'truths' will remain on the banks of the river like immovable rocks. Kant's ideas get processed too, and his 'reason' becomes the subject of future generations' criticism. Which is exactly what has happened."

"But the river you talked about. . ."

"Yes?"

"Where does it go?"